Sorry, Charlie

Yesterday, as my post indicated, I was pretty resigned to the fact that the horse was probably ours. None of my contacts had turned up anything. A couple of days had gone by. Surely if someone loved this animal they would have turned up by then!

Charlie reaching through the cattle gate in an attempt to nibble on me

The only lead we had was from a guy that lived in a log cabin at the end of a nearby dead-end road. He said that the road picked up again on the other side of the woods and that the people that lived at the very end of that road on the other side of the woods had a horse that sometimes got loose. He said that it didn't have much grass, that they didn't have much of a fence. He wouldn't be surprised if it had gotten out again.

My husband had driven around to that road. The further he drove, the narrower and narrower it got. Eventually the rough blacktop turned into a one lane, overgrown gravel drive. At the crest of a hill he stopped. The narrow lane dropped sharply down and turned immediately to the right. He couldn't see where it went and there was barely enough room for his truck. He balked. 

Around here, everybody seems to have a gun, a "no trespassing" sign, and some dogs, so his hesitance was not unwarranted. He didn't like heading into something unknown, and he had my oldest 2 kids in the truck with him. Somehow he managed to turn around and came home. He looked up the owners' names on the GIS site, but their number was unlisted.

We talked it over last night. He said that if the folks back there lost the horse, we had notified everybody, and if they wanted him back, they would be able to find him. He said that he didn't want to "guilt" someone into taking back a horse that they could no longer afford to feed. After all, none of our kids were going to go hungry if we had to keep him. And we've seen plenty of folks around these parts living in poverty so that they could keep a horse. 

We talked about the possibility of advertising free hay along with the horse, because obviously somebody took care of him and must have loved him. Maybe it was because they loved him that they dumped him where we found him, someplace where he was likely to be taken care of. He was well fed after all, which was no small thing this year. But they must have been hard off if they didn't get the vet work done (his hooves trimmed, his eye taken care of.) In the end we decided that times were so rough that we couldn't trust someone to take the horse because it was theirs. They might take it just for the valuable hay and do the horse in. 

So we were fully resigned last night. The horse was now our responsibility. I think that my husband was secretly relieved. He was fond of the horse. I have to admit that I would have been more attached too, if I had let myself, but somebody needed to be reasonable. He assured me that we would find a new owner for him. I wasn't so sure. I saw how much my husband enjoyed the creature. I wouldn't ask him to give it away, even if it meant more work and less money. And I didn't think anyone would volunteer for the hay bill that horse would require this winter anyway. 

Today at 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, a young, scruffy man came to the door. He held out a picture of a horse in his grimy hand. It was a glossy photo and had the words "Lost Horse" in white lettering across the bottom, followed by some other writing that I didn't bother to read because my head was racing with thoughts. 

The really fancy photo and lettering didn't match the ill-kept man. But the blurry photo looked vaguely like the horse in my barn, and how many lost horses could there be? I interrupted his dejected spiel about the lost horse to say that I had found a horse. As I stepped out the door, an older woman called out from the white Chevy Blazer in the drive, "She has him?!" 

"Well she has somebody's lost horse," he replied, none to excitedly. A gray-haired lady immediately leapt out of the vehicle with a lead rope in her hand and joined us as we walked to the barn. I explained how he had turned up on Saturday and how we had alerted everybody we could think of. They didn't say anything. 

I mentioned that he was wearing a green halter. The woman spoke up excitedly, "That's him. That has to be him. His name is Cy." They explained that they lived at the end of a dead end road and that the logging that was going on near their place had scared him, that he had bolted, that they hadn't been able to catch him.

When we walked into the barn, Charlie (as my husband had started calling him) trotted into his stall and pushed his nose through the bars to nibble at my sleeve as I stroked his nose. Then I slid open the door and the man approached the horse with the lead rope. Charlie hesitated. It wasn't an excited reunion. 

The man clipped the rope to the halter. I didn't look at him. I tried not to look at the horse anymore either. For some reason I didn't want to see either of their faces. Instead I glanced back at the woman. She was looking around the pole barn with wide eyes and chatting about our goats. I felt guilty as we stood there next to the 4 horse stalls, only one occupied... by the aforementioned goats. For a moment I thought about offering to keep him. 

They were taking Charlie back to a barbed wire pen in the woods, probably, given the scars on his chest. Neither of them worked a job with standard hours. Did they even have jobs in this down economy? I thought about how much the horse ate while here. I thought about the fact that multiple generations seemed to be living in the same house. My heart ached. What should I do? How could I even tactfully offer to keep him? How would it not sound insulting, condescending, or downright rude?

But then Charlie quietly acquiesced and peacefully stepped from the stall. He followed the man meekly down the gravel drive as they discussed the upcoming long walk home. They complimented me on my house as we walked along. So I became more embarrassed. I tried to return the conversation to their horse. I said something about being glad to have reunited him to his owners, that I knew someone must have been looking for him. My heart wasn't in it. It was almost a lie. 

But the lady flashed me a toothless smile and assured me that her granddaughter had been beside herself, that Cy was her baby. I felt a moment of relief. At least some broken hearted girl would be reunited with her horsey love. Then I noticed that there was someone else in the back of the Blazer. Was it the granddaughter? It was definitely a child. The windows were tinted. I couldn't tell. 

They thanked me again and I hurried into the house, having left the 3 year old under the care of the 13 year old for longer than I was comfortable with, and because if I stayed outside any longer, I might do something rash. I was conflicted about what the right thing to do was. I was uncomfortable with the strangers, the small talk. So I rushed in and told the kids about the horse going home. My youngest son ran to the storm door and watched them go. I couldn't. My 13 year old looked disappointed, but nodded his head like it was what he knew would happen. "They look kind of rough," he mumbled in a concerned tone.

I immediately regretted that I hadn't thought to offer them hay or to give them our number or something. Somehow we hadn't even introduced ourselves to each other properly. Then I thought to get my camera in order to document the goodbye for my husband who was at work, my husband who had to drive the long commute to Indianapolis this morning to be at a meeting that started at 8 AM, my husband that had gotten up early to tend the horse before he left. But I saw no sign of the horse or the man leading him anywhere on our long driveway. Had they cut through the woods? The blazer was rumbling down the drive throwing up a cloud of dust. I sighed and I didn't bother to snap a picture.

Then a lot of other thoughts tumbled through my mind. If it was the granddaughter in the car, why wouldn't she have raced to the barn to see her beloved horse or at least let out an excited whoop? They didn't come looking for him until days after his loss. So was their logging story a ruse? Did they even know he was gone until yesterday? If they didn't realize until now that he was gone, how well could they be taking care of him? 

Maybe the story was true. I have been hearing chain saws in the distance. But then, why didn't they look for him immediately? They watched him run off in our direction through the woods on Saturday and didn't start enquiring until Tuesday? Did they really want him? They never called the sheriff, the extension office, the nearby forestry office, the horse shelter, or the 4-H group. 

Also, all of our neighbors knew about the horse. Many of them are retired and home during the day, so wouldn't the owners have come here expecting to retrieve the horse? Or were we the first place they inquired? It just didn't "add up." Did some young girl, not understanding the burden the horse was to her family guilt them into looking for him? Were they going through the motions just to placate her? Did they come to my door knowing I had the horse, but hoping I wouldn't admit it? They had made door-to-door visits in the middle of a week day. Maybe that was because there was less chance of someone being home to return their horse. Did they not really want him? 

But the woman had sounded relieved. And they had that picture. But maybe that picture was from one of the other times he had run off? I am full of doubts and worries. 

Ugh! Sorry Charlie!